“Yes?”
“I’m asking you not to jump to a hasty judgment. I think if you give Dixie and Rose some time, you’ll see they are upstanding and honest. I’m not asking for you to go against the law. But the people of this town are hardworking folks, and I don’t want to put a damper on the Christmas season for them.”
Zane spread his hands. “I’m a reasonable man, Sheriff Callahan. I’ve spent months hunting them down. I promise not to rush to judgment. What are a few more days in the scheme of things?”
That lifted Reagan’s burden, but only slightly. “For that, I thank you. Now”—he stood—“I have to head back to my rooms above the jail, so I’ll walk you back into town. Do you have a place to stay?”
“Indeed, I do.” Zane’s expression took on a calculating air. “I thought I would see what the accommodations at Dixie’s Boardinghouse were like.”
CHAPTER SIX
Dixie Pottinger was standing at the front desk of the boardinghouse when the bell above the front door rang. The moment she looked up and saw the tall, lanky man in the long brown leather coat striding across the entry, her heart leapt into her throat.
Something about him made her feel like a noose had just been slipped over her neck. She swallowed and forced her voice to be steady. “Good evening, sir. How may I help you?”
The man swiveled his Stetson through his fingers. Likely in his early forties, he had a nice face and gray-blue eyes with laugh lines at the corners. So what was it about him that had set her immediately on edge?
His gaze raked her up and down, but not in the way of a man looking at a woman. It was in the way of a lawman assessing a criminal. She wasn’t sure what made her realize it, since she’d never been a criminal until recently, but there was something in his scrutiny that made a shiver run down her spine.
“Just need a room for a few weeks. Happen to have one available?”
If she had doubted her fears up to that moment, his accent affirmed them all. There was nothing quite like a Carolina drawl.
Dixie willed her hands not to tremble as she lifted a key from the back wall and turned the ledger toward him. She offered him a smile she hoped didn’t look too stiff. “Yes certainly. A room was recently vacated. If you’ll just sign here?”
Settling his hat onto his head, the man picked up the pen and scratched his name across the paper. He peered up at her from beneath the brim of his Stetson, then pushed the book back towards her. “Y’all been in these parts long?”
Dixie swallowed again. Tempted as she was to lie, she knew he’d easily be able to learn the truth from the other citizens of Wyldhaven. And that would only make her look guiltier in the end. So she forced the truth through her lips. “My mother and I run this boardinghouse. We’ve been here for just over a year.”
With a calculating glint in his eye, Marshal Zane Holloway—as he’d signed his name—picked up the key from the counter and gave a little bow of thanks. “Thank you kindly for the room.”
Dixie clenched her hands into her skirt, knowing he couldn’t see the motion beneath the counter. She offered a nod, hoping he would just go up to his room and not ask her any more questions. She wished Ma wasn’t so sick, because then they could pack up and make a run for it. And yet just the thought of leaving Wyldhaven sent a shaft of pain through her heart. They had made a life here. Many of the people were like family. She stamped one foot in frustration. It wasn’t fair. Steven’s brutality had interfered with their lives once already. Now it was set to do so again.
She should have known that their past would catch up to them eventually. Steven had been too powerful a man for people to simply forget about his death. Of course, he had kept such a perfect line between his private persona and his public persona. Would anyone even believe them when they said the man had been shot in self-defense—by his own mother!
Dixie watched the lawman make his way up the stairs to the second floor, and absentmindedly rubbed her hand over her forearm. Beneath the material of her long sleeve she could feel the welts where Steven’s cigars had left their marks. She could smell the scent of her own burning flesh. Hear the sizzle that always accompanied the grinding of the stubs into her skin.
All her hopes deflated, and weariness washed over her. Had she truly thought they could escape and never be caught?
No. If she were honest, she’d known this day was coming for a long time.
She was only glad that she’d finally worked up her courage to tell Flynn the story on her own before he heard it from some stranger on the hunt for them.
That, at least, was a blessing.
He’d found them. After a cursed year, six months, and ten days, he’d finally found them. He’d known Mam wouldn’t be able to resist writing a letter to her best friend Dolly Macon at some point. Of course, Dolly would never have told him anything, but Prissy Singleton who worked the post office in Birch Run was another matter altogether.
It had taken some doing to arrange a “chance” meeting with Prissy and then convince her that she must tell no one he was still alive. But with a good measure of his considerable charm, and a few well-timed secretive rendezvous, he’d pulled it off. Prissy had been like putty in his hands. Still, he’d been a little more than surprised when she’d brought him the envelope today. Postmarked with a stamp all the way from Cle Elum Washington.
Thankfully, he wouldn’t need to hide out in this seedy hotel in Beaufort any longer. He grinned as he tossed the last of his things into his traveling case and retrieved his cane from the foot of the bed. Hefting the case, he stepped to the door and then paused to survey the room. Dash it, Prissy’s skirt still protruded from under the bed! He hobbled over and used his cane to push the material back beneath the low frame. Satisfied that he’d hidden her well enough that she wouldn’t be found for several days, he headed for the stairs. He’d paid for the room through the end of the week, so they wouldn’t find her at least until then. That is if the South Carolina heat didn’t get to the body and raise a stench sooner. Even in December it was warm enough for people to go jacketless here.
No matter. He’d used an alias, and he would be on this afternoon’s train headed west under another alias, so all would be well.
In the foyer, he skirted around a bellhop dragging a chest toward the creaky old elevator and strode toward the doors. A cramp seized him when he was only halfway across the room. He pulled up with a gasp and a curse. How many times had he suffered the humiliation of working a cramp out of his thigh in public? He cursed again as he massaged and stretched the leg. After a long mortifying moment where several in the entry paused to see what he was doing, he limped the rest of the way out onto the walk and gestured for a hansom cab. He offered the man a forced smile along with instructions to take him to the train station, and gritted his teeth against the pain as he climbed the steps into the carriage.
Mam’s aim had been faulty enough to save his life, but accurate enough to maim him for the rest of it. On most days that morose thought tormented him.
But not today.
Today he was able to set it aside.
Because he would soon enough have his revenge.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Liora spread her coins out on the bed and counted them again. Her stomach cramped with hunger, but she didn’t dare spend the twelve cents for Ewan’s devil hot chili and a roll that would likely be rock hard, or even the ten cents that Dixie charged for a bowl of oatmeal, an egg, and a slice of bacon over at the boardinghouse. Just the thought of bacon and eggs had her settling one hand over the ache in her midsection as her mouth watered.
She might not work for Ewan anymore, but she hadn’t had a place to move to and he still expected his rent to be paid right on time. One dollar every week, or she would be out on her ear in the cold. And with the blustery way this December had started off, she didn’t relish the thought of trying to find shelter through the worst of it. And she was still twenty-five cents short for this week’s rent, due in two days.
Ewan was still upset that Deputy Rodante had forced him to sell her contract, and Liora knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to evict her without any warning if she was even a penny short come Monday. The only reason she was allowed to stay here was because he didn’t have another woman working for him yet. He figured getting some money from her rental of the room was better than letting it go empty and getting nothing.
So far she’d been blessed enough to be able to come up with the money each week, but the odd jobs were getting harder and harder to come by. She knew everyone in town was tight on funds this time of year. And she didn’t want to accept charity. She had the regular job for Mr. King at the post office. She delivered letters for him out to the logging camps for fifty cents a week. But other than that, any money she made was from small jobs she could talk townspeople into letting her do for them. This week Mr. Hines from the mercantile had let her organize his store’s back room. He’d paid her fifty cents, which she’d been elated about—especially since she’d gotten to work indoors out of the cold for two whole days.
Between that money and the pay Mr. King gave her every Friday evening, she would have had enough to pay her rent, but her cupboards had been bare of nearly everything. So she’d spent two bits on some food. A quart of beans had cost her ten cents. Adding three potatoes for a penny a piece, a small packet of salt, another of lard, and a one pound loaf of bread, had left her with just enough to buy a pound of stewing meat for five cents. This she’d asked Mr. Hines to wrap in eight one-eighth pound packages for her, which he’d most generously done. The meat was currently sealed inside an old tea-tin which she’d suspended out her window to keep cold. Thankfully, the freezing temperatures would keep it from going bad. She’d been allowing herself to use one packet of meat every three days.
And tonight she could take out another packet—her stomach rumbled at the pleasant thought. But that still didn’t solve her problem of what to do in the next two days so that she could pay Ewan his dollar come Monday evening.
With a sigh, she opened her window and extracted a packet of meat from the tin as quickly as she could, then slammed the window against the blast of northern air that could nearly take one’s breath away.
She added two sticks of wood to the small stove in the corner and set her one remaining pot onto it. She scooped half a teaspoon of lard into the bottom of the pot, let it melt then added the frozen chunk of meat.
She sighed and sank back on her bed, pulling the Bible that Joe had given her closer. The meat was going to take a while to thaw. She would add half a potato and a few of the soft beans she’d been boiling all day after a while, but for now, perhaps it was best she quit fretting. Ewan kept hinting that he’d be happy to give her back her old job, and she didn’t want to get so discouraged that she even started contemplating that idea.
Tomorrow she would see if the sheriff had any work for her at the jailhouse. Tonight she would pray that God would see her plight. That He’d let her know what to do with her future. And that He’d send her enough work to pay her rent for another week.
Eyeing Dixie’s door, Flynn paused at the head of the boardinghouse stairs and took a deep breath. The fact that his heart thundered in his chest when he was just here to make a medical call, had frustration coursing through him.
Especially now that she’d made her confession of marital status.
He had no business loving a woman who was still married—or even maybe still married—no matter what manner of ruffian that man might be. It was a good thing the man might already be dead, because if he ever ran into the reprobate there were any number of medical ways he could think of to induce pain and suffering.
Flynn swept one hand down the front of his jacket and angled a look toward the ceiling. Father, forgive me. I know that attitude is not what you would want me to have. But, so help me, when I think about what he did to her…
At that moment Dixie’s door opened and she stepped out with a food tray balanced on one hand. “Oh, Flynn—Doctor Griffin. I’m glad you are here. I was just running Ma’s dinner tray back to the kitchen.” She pulled a face. “I’m afraid I wasn’t able to entice her into eating much.”
“Even eating a little helps. Just a few bites at each mealtime will go a long way to helping her regain her health.” Flynn set his bag down to one side of the doorway and reached for the tray. “Here,—let me get that for you.”
“Oh, no. It’s okay. Why don’t you go in and check on her and I’ll be right up after I wash these things? I’m actually glad that you are here to sit with her till I get back. I’m concerned about her breathing. It has a strange sound to it.”
She didn’t give him a chance to protest, but brushed by him and trotted down the stairs without so much as another glance his way.
He loosed a breath and let her go without protest. Each time he’d come to check on Rose this week, Dixie’s attitude toward him seemed to have grown more strained. Something was bothering her, but he hadn’t been able to get her to confide in him about it. He supposed he should be thankful that she’d trusted him enough to finally tell him her whole story, yet that trust obviously didn’t go too far if she wasn’t willing to confide this seemingly new concern. Perhaps he was misjudging and it was simply her anxiety over Rose that had her so tense and on edge?
Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to figure it out by standing here staring at the last place she’d vacated.
He took up his bag and started into the apartment, but a door across the way opened, drawing his attention. A middle-aged man with long dark hair stepped from the room and tipped his hat to Flynn. “Evening.”
Flynn nodded and returned the greeting. When had this man arrived? He generally knew about any newcomers to town, but he hadn’t heard that Dixie had a new guest staying at her place. Could this man be part of the reason Dix had been so uptight lately?
The man scrutinized him with a piercing assessment. “How do you know the Pottingers?”
The question raised Flynn’s hackles. Shouldn’t he be the one asking the questions?
Nevertheless, he had nothing to hide… “I’m the doctor in these parts. Name’s Griffin. Flynn Griffin.” He took two steps and offered the man his hand.
The man’s grip was firm when they shook. “Pleased to meet you, Doc. I’m Zane Holloway, US Marshal.”
Flynn’s curiosity piqued at that. What was a US Marshal doing in Wyldhaven? “You just passing through?”
Zane rubbed his jaw. “No. I think I’m going to be here for a while. Say…who’s the barber ’round these parts?”
“Isn’t one by trade. Most people pay Mrs. Jacinda Callahan. Two bits a cut. She’s been cutting my hair for years. You’ll find her over on Second Street. Third house down to the—”
“South.”
Flynn blinked, wondering how the man had known. Then nodded.
A glint of humor entered the marshal’s eyes. “Mrs. Callahan and I have met. Pleasure making your acquaintance.” The man tipped his hat and disappeared down the stairs.
Pondering the reasons that a US Marshal might be in town did nothing to make Flynn feel better. He thought of Dixie’s story. How she and Rose had left her husband bleeding on the floor. Could the marshal be here about that? A knot that would surely turn to indigestion if he didn’t quit his worrying tightened in the pit of his stomach. He sighed. He didn’t suppose it was likely his business, so he decided to put the matter from his mind.
He pushed into the apartment and crossed the room to Rose’s door, tapping lightly. “Rose? It’s me, Doc. Okay if I come in?”
Dixie lingered at the bottom of the stairs, guiltily eavesdropping to see if she could learn anything more about the marshal. Disappointment surged when he didn’t reveal anything other than what she already knew.
His footsteps began to descend the stairs, and Dixie rushed into the kitchen on quiet feet and plunked the tray down next to the sink. Between the hurt lingering in Flynn’s eyes and the marshal popping up at unexpected intervals, she doubt
ed she would have a moment’s peace over the next few days. She flattened one hand against the panic that tightened her chest. She flicked a glance toward the door. Would the marshal follow her in here? She scooted into the pantry. Thankful that she’d insisted on a room large enough to house all her supplies, she pressed her forehead to the front of one shelf.
A breath dragged deep into her lungs didn’t do much to calm her.
Everything seemed to be piling on top of her at once. Rose’s sickness, the need to come out with the truth to Flynn to stop him from advancing his suit further, the marshal showing up.
She blew the breath out slowly between pursed lips.
She’d known in the back of her mind that one day the past would catch up to her. But she hadn’t been prepared for the loss she’d felt the moment she’d laid eyes on the marshal. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to care about her friends here in Wyldhaven. She loved this town. She loved providing meals for people each evening. She loved offering clean lodging to those in need.
And now she was about to lose everything.
Rose’s life hung in the balance.
Flynn’s sense of propriety would have him keeping his distance—not that she’d ever let him get close.
Her freedom would certainly be taken from her once the marshal determined what they’d done to Steven. And that in turn would sully her reputation with her friends here in town.
The band that cinched around her chest impinged on her desire for another deep breath. Each inhale was short and shallow. Each exhale wheezy and weak.
She longed for a release of the pressure. Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you. The verse came unbidden to her mind. She used to believe that God actually cared. But that had been a long time ago. Before Steven. Somewhere in the middle of those horrifying years, she’d lost her faith. She couldn’t point to a day when she’d given it up. It had seeped out a little here and a little there with each new trial she’d faced, until one day it was gone altogether.
On Eagles' Wings (Wyldhaven Book 2) Page 5
